Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-06-02

to Protect Plantations
From the Rice Bird.
The pathological division of the depart.
ment of agriculture has been engaged fol
some time in an investigation of the eff.
feet of the law enacted in Pennsylvania
in 1885 granting bounty of fifty cents q
head ON all hawks, owls, weasles and
minks killed within the limits of the state.
The law was enacted for the alleged ben.
eft of the farmers of Pennsylvania, and
from the time when it first went into ef-
feet until it was repealed a few weeks
ago something like 800, 900 had been paid
out under it. The investigations of the
department show that this sum is but q
small fraction of the direct and indirect
cost of the law of the state.
1t is found that there are about fifteen
species of hawks and owls in the eastern
states. OF these only three varieties ever
feed upon poultry. Within the past six
weeks the department has examined the
contents of the stomachs of ninety birds
killed in the neighborhood of Washing
ton. In that of hawk was found q por-
ton of the head of domestic fowl,
which might have been the offal thrown
out of some farmers kitchen. In the
stomach of an owl a portion of domestic
pidgeon was discovered. These two
were the only ones among the ninety in
which there was any indication of a par.
TALLY for poultry on the part of the
part of the hawk and owl family. Nearly
all of the other stomachs examined con.
tanned from one to five field mice, as well
as a great many insects which are natural
ly very destructive to crops.
SCIENTISTS ESTIMATE.
Upon this showing the department esti-
mates that each hawk and owl is worth
S25 per annum to the farmers of the coun-
ty. The estimate is based upon the as
sumption that every field mouse not
caught will damage crops to the amount
of two cents year. The scientific men
of the department., who delight in figures,
have come to the conclusion that if ev-
cry hawk and owl killed under the Penn.
sylvania county law had been allowed to
live, the damage done by them would
have amounted, under very liberal esti-
mate, to about 8, 875 while the law was in
operation. On the other side of the &C.
count book they charge up the 500, 900
paid by the state IN bounties and $50 as
the value of each bird killed, and find
that from the passage of the act to the
date of its repeal the entire cost was 49,
857, 100, besides the damage done in the
way of increased production of the YER
mine, because Of the depletion in the
ranks of their enemies.
While the state of Pennsylvania has
been trying to get rid of the hawks the
general government has been busy de-
vising ways to make them more useful.
have been pending for some
time between the chief ornithologist of
the department of agriculture and man
who has had great deal of experience as
a trainer of falcons in Europe. These
are for the purpose of &C.
curing the services of this man to train a
number of hawks for use in the rice fields
of South Carolina. The planters there
are clamoring for some method of Kidding
their fields of rice birds, which play
frightful havoc with their crops every
year. 1t has been found that the pres
ence of living hawk in the air over the
fields of rice will cause the immediate de-
parture of every bird in the vicinity.
Guns, drums and other implements for
creating a great noise are only partly
successful. A stuffed hawk will do well
enough for day or two, but the depre-
dators soon learn that there is little to
fear from dead enemy 1t is therefore
proposed to try the effect of trained birds.
1t is the purpose of the department to be-
gin with small number this year, and if
the plan proves successful to the rice bird
problem, it is likely that every rich
planter in the south will be supplied in
the near future with flock of falcons
New York Sun.